


365 Days (and you're in all of them)

by isugou



Category: Free!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Flower Shop, Alternate Universe - Future, Angst with a Happy Ending, Background Matsuoka Gou/Mikoshiba Isuzu, Background Nanase Haruka/Tachibana Makoto - Freeform, Break Up, Established Matsuoka Gou/Mikoshiba Isuzu, Established Nanase Haruka/Tachibana Makoto, F/F, Getting Back Together, I promise, M/M, Post-Canon, Slow Build, Slow Burn, reigisa in tokyo
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-25
Updated: 2019-11-25
Packaged: 2021-02-13 03:23:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,350
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21487534
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/isugou/pseuds/isugou
Summary: It was almost incomprehensible before, but he’s learned that, no matter how much he wants to crawl under something and hide forever, the world keeps moving. If he doesn’t get over himself, he’ll be left behind.Even if it means pushing everything down. Even if it means he never truly falls out of love.Even if it means he has to go on without Rei.
Relationships: Hazuki Nagisa/Ryuugazaki Rei, Matsuoka Gou/Mikoshiba Isuzu, Minor or Background Relationship(s), Nanase Haruka/Tachibana Makoto, Undisclosed Relationship(s)
Comments: 5
Kudos: 10





	365 Days (and you're in all of them)

**Author's Note:**

> so so many thanks to [sagesprouts](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sagesprouts) for being the best beta reader i could ask for <33 please go check them out!!

_ coming to terms with a broken heart, _

_ i guess that sometimes good things fall apart._

It’s the winter of freshman year when Nagisa realizes something is wrong. 

The texts are getting shorter and shorter, with less enthusiasm each time. The calls have disappeared altogether, and he’s left checking his phone without expecting to see anything.

It’s okay, though. He’s busier than ever, and he can’t imagine it’s been any easier for Rei. College is different - they’ve known this from the start. 

It’s okay, he tells himself, as his _ Good morning _ s and _ I miss you _ s and _ I love you _s go unanswered. It’s okay, he reassures Rei when he’s late - again - to a date that took far too long to plan. It’s okay, he whispers, tucking away their old high school photos because seeing them hurts in all the wrong ways. (He needs to pull them back out the next day because it’s getting harder to remember the color of Rei’s eyes.)

He keeps trying, though. He makes sure to check in with Rei often, asking him how he is, updating him on his own day. It’s the least he can do - his boyfriend has so much on his plate, and he should know that someone is here for him. 

But still... the replies feel distant and impersonal, like Rei is running on autopilot or turning into a robot. It’s more than a little worrying, but he tells himself that Rei will say something if there’s anything really _ wrong _.

Probably.

So when Rei texts him one evening, asking to come over, he responds immediately with a very enthusiastic _ Yes!!! _ and cancels his plans for the night. It’s nothing important, anyway - just a study session with some friends, and their exam isn’t for another week.

The refrigerator is depressingly bare, though, and Nagisa frowns at the shelves, considering. If he goes out to get food, he might not be back in time… but it’s been so long since they’ve eaten together, and he always worries that Rei isn’t eating enough. 

Having made up his mind, he bundles up in a puffy winter jacket before heading out to brave the sharp January winds of Tokyo.

It takes a few tries before Nagisa manages to unlock the front door, juggling the many bags he’s carrying and fumbling for his keys in the most ungraceful way. Somehow, nothing is spilled, and he begins the trek up to the his apartment. Although he’s been making a point to go jogging every morning, it’s obviously not helping very much, because he almost coughs a lung out after climbing the five flights of stairs. He’s nearly ready to give up and collapse face-first onto the carpet until he rounds the corner, noticing a familiar figure standing just outside his door.

“Rei-chan!!” he calls, bounding over, the boxes of take-out bouncing around precariously inside of their bags. If nothing had spilled before, it’s almost definitely a mess now. Oops. 

He slows down as he gets closer, noticing something in Rei’s expression that almost seems _ scary _. He looks angry, something that doesn’t happen very often, and Nagisa’s fingers tighten around the plastic loops.

“...Rei-chan?”

“Where have you been, Nagisa-kun?” His tone is soft, which is somehow more dangerous than outright yelling, and ten times as terrifying.

“I was just getting us some-”

“I have been waiting here for an _ hour _.” Rei huffs, shakes his head, and pushes his glasses up. “It’s alright. I’ll just do this now.”

Ice slides down Nagisa’s spine. “Do...what?” His own voice is starting to sound distant. He swallows with difficulty, trying to calm himself enough to focus on the conversation. _ It’s okay. If he’s having problems, he would’ve told you. _

_ Right? _

“Nagisa-kun, we need to break up.”

What?

No.

_ No. _

“I’m sure you’ve noticed that things have been a little-”

The feeling is draining out of his fingers, leaving them trembling and cold.

“-my workload is-”

He can’t breathe. He can’t think.

“-that I feel is the best for both you and-”

_ Am I not good enough for you? _

Distantly, he’s aware that Rei has stopped talking and is probably expecting a response, but he can’t bring himself to look up. If he even opens his mouth, he might just explode.

It doesn’t matter, though, because tears have already started dripping down his cheeks, leaving damp trails of fire. 

“R-Rei-chan…” he attempts, voice faltering pathetically, and he has to stop for a second to make sure his chest isn’t actually splitting in two.

“_ Why? _ Don’t we... couldn’t you…” A whimper escapes his throat as he swipes at his cheeks desperately. “Don’t you love me?”

Silence.

Nagisa finally looks up.

The look Rei is giving him is so gentle, so pitying. He just wants to run away. His legs won’t move though, as hard as he tries, and he breaks. The sobs tear through him like he’s rice paper, and he buries his face in his hands. There’s nothing in the world that can fix him now. He doesn’t even realize that the other boy is moving until he is, and for a single, shining moment he thinks Rei will hug him and take everything back.

Rei holds out the bags of Chinese food.

Oh. He’d dropped them.

Numbly, he reaches out a hand and accepts them back.

“I… wish it could be different.” Rei doesn’t sound as clinical anymore, but he’s walking on eggshells, which is so much worse. He glances around, rubbing the back of his neck - embarrassed, maybe, that one of the neighbors could walk in on Nagisa making a scene. 

Or maybe he’s trying to find an escape, like their relationship has already wasted too much of his time.

Rei pauses again, considering, but then he sighs and shakes his head. 

“This is the only way. I really am sorry, Nagisa-kun.”

_No_, Nagisa wants to scream, _stop it._ _I love you, don’t leave me_.

Instead, he watches silently as Rei steps back and starts making his way down the hall. 

Away from Nagisa, away from their life. 

He doesn’t look back. 

Nagisa is dying, he’s sure of it.

It’s the only way to explain the sharp pain in his chest, as if someone haphazardly carved it open and forgot to stitch him back up. The rest of his body is borderline numb, lacking sensation in a way he wishes his heart would take note of.

After Rei leaves, he wanders around his apartment in a daze, shoving the now-cold boxes of take-out into the fridge and heating up the shower. He stands under the spray of water for what feels like hours, and finally understands how Haru feels: the water is alive, and right now it’s the only thing keeping him warm.

He reemerges into a room filled with steam, skin scrubbed pink from the heat. Rather than following his usual nighttime routine, Nagisa drags himself straight to bed, even though the day is far from over. The droplets from his still-wet hair soak the pillowcase, but he ignores it, pulling the covers up to his chin and turning on his side.

Maybe if he hugs himself tightly enough, he will feel whole again. 

When he wakes, the sky is still dark.

He checks his phone.

_ 4:00 AM _

He groans slightly, falling back onto his pillows, throat raw and eyes dry. He feels empty and _ wrong _, like there’s something he’s forgotten-

_ Oh. _

The void reopens in his chest, raw and angry.

_ Rei-chan. _

He turns off his morning alarm and lies back down.

Sleep eludes him for the rest of the night and most of the morning. Finally, somewhere around 2pm, he gets sick of staring at the wall and drags himself out from under the covers. 

He makes eggs, eats them, feelinglike a ghost in his own home. His movements are mechanical, puppet-like. He doesn’t know where he is, but it’s certainly not in his body. It’s somewhere above, watching himself like he’s in a movie - except movies have happy endings, and he doesn’t know if this is ever going to end.

He goes back to bed.

A mistake, as it turns out, because his hand brushes soft cotton when he settles down on the pillows. He tugs at it, and out comes an old, balled-up t-shirt.

It smells just like _ him _. 

(He still remembers when they got it. It was months ago, before the whirlwind that is university, back when Rei still smiled at him with warmth in his eyes. Some sort of charity running thing - not the ideal date, but his boyfriend had been so passionate that he couldn’t find himself wanting to say no. He’d suggested that Rei not hold back, either, which meant that he was probably going to be left behind. That was okay - Nagisa was just in it for the free t-shirt.

Turns out the shirt was only for people who beat a certain time, and he’d been just a few seconds off. 

He was pouting and grumbling when they met back up again, under the cool shade of an oak tree. Rei handed him a water bottle and he accepted gratefully, downing half the thing in one gulp.

“It’s so unfair,” Nagisa groaned again, mourning his loss. He wiped his forehead with a small towel and watched as other families and kids milled the lawn. When he looked back, Rei was smiling fondly at him.

“...What is it?”

Rei held out a roll of fabric.

“Rei-chan?”

“Take it,” he insisted. “I do this race every year, so I have more than enough t-shirts. But I want you to have something to remember our first run by.” 

They both knew the hidden meaning behind that sentence: _ Don’t forget this. _

_ How could I ever? _

He wonders if Rei knew back then that he would ever fall out of love.)

Nagisa presses his face into the shirt and inhales deeply. Soap, citrus, and sage. It’s so familiar that he can immediately feel tears start burning in his eyes, and his heart aches so badly it might burst. He all but collapses back down on the mattress, burying his nose against a pillow to muffle his gasps. It only partly works, but at this point the paper-thin walls are barely on his mind. He clutches at his blankets, the mattress, whatever he can, but it still feels as though he’s about to fall off of a neverending cliff. 

And now, there’s nobody to catch him.

He finds himself taking the train to Haru’s apartment. It’s already late, and he has another 8am tomorrow, but the thought of spending the night truly on his own again is terrifying.

It only takes him a minute to find the neat _ NANASE _ scrawled next to tens of other names. Nagisa prods the button without thinking and plays with the hem of his shirt, doubt suddenly filling his mind. What if Haru isn’t even home? What if he doesn’t want to see him?

He’s suddenly reminded of a moment, years ago and in a town hundreds of miles away - standing on the doorstep of a different building, in a different life.

Haru answers after a minute - right, it’s dinner time, isn’t it? - and lets him in without any questions, though Nagisa can hear all of them in his voice. He takes the elevator up to the third floor and counts the doors until he gets to 301. Before he can even knock, the door opens, revealing his old friend in that same navy apron he always wore back in high school. 

“Nagisa.” Haru’s frowning. (Does he really look like that much of a mess?) “What’s wrong?”

His face immediately crumples at those two words, and he’s silently herded inside.

“Just like that?” Haru asks quietly. 

They sit on the tatami mat in the living room with bowls of soup. It should smell delicious, Nagisa knows, but he can’t find it in himself to feel hungry. 

He nods.

“I’m sorry.” 

“It’s okay,” Nagisa replies automatically, before realizing how _ not okay _ it is. 

To his horror, he feels his eyes get watery for what has to be the twentieth time in as many hours, and he sinks down until his sleeves are shielding him from the world. There’s some shuffling, and he feels a warm body settling down next to him.

“It’s okay to be sad,” Haru murmurs, his tone a little stilted, like he’s not sure what to do. 

He puts an arm around Nagisa’s shoulders in a way that’s almost motherly, and that’s when Nagisa shatters, turning into Haru’s embrace. Thankfully, his friend lets him, and holds him as he shakes with the force of his cries.

“It hurts so badly,” he sobs into Haru’s shirt. 

“I know,” comes the soft reply, and his fingers tighten around the fabric. 

“Why did he leave me?” Nagisa’s voice is barely a whisper now, the words choked out through tears. 

Haru doesn’t have an answer, and neither of them expect him to - they just let themselves exist for a little while. 

“Haru-chan?”

“Mm?”

Nagisa’s on his side, head resting on his friend’s thigh. They haven’t moved from the table - both of their soups have gone cold, he realizes with a stab of guilt - and he’s been alternating between incoherent crying and soft conversation. Haru, to his credit, has acquiesced without complaint, idly reading through his notes while Nagisa takes up his lap.

“You and Mako-chan have fought before, right?” His voice is a little hoarse. Though he can only see the floor, he feels Haru’s shrug jostling his head slightly.

“Sometimes. It’s not really a big deal.”

“Yeah, but…” He picks at a loose thread on Haru’s jeans. “What about, y’know. That one summer?” 

Haru tenses up, and Nagisa swallows nervously. He was never really told what happened, only that they’d had a huge argument and Haru went to Australia not long after. 

“...Ah. That one.”

Nagisa nods. “But you guys figured it out, right?”

A pause. 

“Yeah. It took a while.”

“How did you do it?”

“Mm. A lot of talking.” 

There’s a shuffle of papers as Haru sets his notebook on the table before leaning back on his hands. 

“Makoto sometimes does too much,” Haru continues, “but it’s because he cares.” He sighs, and Nagisa’s mouth is dry for some reason. “We were lucky. Not everyone is..._ supposed _ to work it out.” 

“Do-” Nagisa’s voice is dangerously wobbly before it breaks, and he has to take a breath and clear his throat before trying again. “Do you think he’ll come back?”

Another pause as Haru attempts to translate his thoughts. The fact that he’s even trying is surprisingly heartwarming - usually, he just says whatever he’s thinking, and Makoto’s the one that explains the cryptic words in plain Japanese.

“I know he cares about you. A lot.” Haru begins carefully. “But he knows what choices he needs to make. Nobody can force him to want something he doesn’t.”

Nagisa manages a weak fraction of a nod, voice rendered completely useless, and buries his face back into Haru’s firm thigh. Tears stain the denim within seconds, but Haru says nothing, silently combing his fingers through blond curls.

He wakes up the next morning, tucked neatly into a spare futon with a glass of water sitting by his head.

The next few days aren’t any easier. 

Nagisa cries, he shouts, he’s unable to sleep at all one day, but spends the entire next one in bed. 

In his darker moments, he almost calls Rei. He types in the digits that he still knows by heart, his finger hovering apprehensively over the dial button, but he always manages to put the phone back down - if only because Gou threatens to indefinitely confiscate it otherwise. She’s the one who ends up pulling him along - whether he wants to or not - reminding him to eat and inviting him to study sessions. 

Even though he’s still not totally there, his body keeps moving, pushing him to do all the things that took such little effort before. Smiles and laughter have always come to him easily, but now they’re bittersweet, aching at the edges. Reawakening the void inside of him, the one he always refuses to truly fix.

Makoto suggests he writes out his thoughts, like letters that’ll never be sent, and even gives him a small journal he’d gotten at Hidaka’s orientation. 

At first, Nagisa uses it liberally. Every time he starts getting too nostalgic, every time he sees someone with eyes that’re a little too violet, he pulls out the notebook and starts scribbling. Over time, it becomes more of a habit, and he finds himself using it to talk about his day and keep track of assignments. 

Looking back through the older pages is a little embarrassing, but he does it sometimes to remind himself of how far he’s come. 

To remind himself that life still exists.

It was almost incomprehensible before, but he’s learned that, no matter how much he wants to crawl under something and hide forever, the world keeps moving. If he doesn’t get over himself, he’ll be left behind.

Even if it means pushing everything down. Even if it means he never truly falls out of love. 

Even if it means he has to go on without Rei.

(The t-shirt remains in his bed, tucked somewhere between the mattress and the headboard.)

**1 Year Later**

Backpack thudding heavily against his torso, Nagisa nearly sprints through the train station. He can see the light at the end of the tunnel (physically _ and _ metaphorically - it turns out he’s still not great at running) and presses on with a huff. 

The air gets colder as the walls open up to the platform, and the wind has a sharp bite to it. Nagisa turns up his collar and shivers despite his workout before squinting up at the arrival times. Thank god, he’s still got five minutes. Snoozing the alarm is a dangerous game, one he should’ve stopped playing months ago, but it’s always so _ tempting _…

He takes out his phone and swipes idly through his Instagram feed while he waits. There’s a photo of Gou passed out on top of a pile of books that Isuzu posted last night, and he chuckles fondly. While the two of them moving in together earlier that spring had been totally chaotic - Nagisa _ knows _; he’d been roped into helping - it seemed like they were settling in nicely. It at least means that Gou isn’t hanging around his apartment all the time, claiming to want quality time together when they both knew she was waiting for her girlfriend to get out of class. 

It must’ve been rough for Gou, seeing as both Nagisa and Isuzu were at Hidaka while she was stuck at Meisei. Nagisa won’t admit it, but he does miss her calming presence. 

The train for the other side of the platform arrives with a deafening screech, and the bustling of students and workers starting their days fills the space. Nagisa is jostled a little as the crowd exits the train, but steps to the side and mostly ignores the mild bumping. 

He tries to ignore it, at least, because somebody all but body slams him against a trash can. He turns, ready to either snap or apologize depending on the perpetrator’s attitude, and promptly freezes.

The man standing before him is familiar in a way that immediately makes his gut twist. He has some stubble, now, and new glasses, but it’s really, definitely him. 

The way he gapes down at Nagisa only confirms it, and he suddenly finds it very hard to draw the frosty air into his struggling lungs. He’s sent back three years, when they’d truly met for the first time, and he’d been the only one to see through that cold and calculating armor. Two years, when they were in the midst of falling in love, and every second spent together was still _ not enough _.

One year, when they could barely look at each other without thinking about what had been lost.

He feels nauseous and numb and faint all at the same time.

“Rei?”

**Author's Note:**

> the title of this work is from "Kizuato" by centimillimental, and the chapter title is from "Good Things Fall Apart" by Illenium ft. Jon Bellion.  
i am also on twitter ([@isugou](https://twitter.com/isugou)) and tumblr ([abubblingstarrysky](https://abubblingstarrysky.tumblr.com/)) - you're welcome to message me about anything! (especially free ;-) )


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